Time for a little promotion here...
I got involved with FilmArt late last year via Mike Malloy who kindly recommended my services to them - I worked on the English subs for 'Il Re Della Mala' but, sadly, the Italian licensors wouldn't let them use them so they were used to translate from English>German only (basically for their own internal use) They did try...
I should add that the first disc does, as has been mentioned already, contain the English dub track so fans of wonky dubbing have no reason to avoid it! Personally, it's the speedboat stuff at the end that's the real killer... Seriously, those guys are completely insane!
Anyway, the next two films I've been working on are 'The Cynic, The Rat and the Fist' and 'La Banda del Gobbo' (Brothers Till We Die) - Initially the extras were two interviews with Sal Borghese and Henry Silva and a text essay by Umberto Lenzi... Giving it some thought (and checking the opening credits when I started work on them...) I noticed Franco Micalizzi did the soundtracks for both films... As luck would have it, Franco's son Cristiano plays in my cousin's band so I got in contact with him and recorded an interview for FilmArt:
Franco Micalizzi chilling in his home studio:
The full interview was almost three hours long but I've chopped it down to about 60 minutes, aiming to keep it focussed on him, his music, and working with Umberto Lenzi.
Next up: Given that they were already in contact with Umberto Lenzi, I suggested recording a video interview with him - and that happened about a week ago... I have to be honest, he's a great guy but he was also very demanding at first... I also got the impression he was expecting us to turn up, ask a couple of questions and leave. But that isn't what happened: I did my research (for once!) and turned up with a stack of questions and came away with an almost three hour long 'career' interview... By all accounts, his first - and he did seem quite happy/surprised at the end of it! Of course, it's going to be edited down heavily but expect the guts of the interview on the discs...
Now, I have no idea which interviews are going on which discs, etc - or what shape they'll finally appear in but it's looking promising that both will be extensive.
Umberto Lenzi telling us what questions to ask, and how to ask em!
(Thankfully he eased up after a short while...)
There's still a lot of work for me to do here; The Micalizzi interview is just about ready to send over, and the Lenzi text essay has been translated - This week I'll be chipping away at the Lenzi interview...
I'd also like to thank Mike Malloy and Sebastian (at FilmArt) for making all this possible - Cheers!
